


I'll Be In Your Heart If You'll Be In My Ears

by orphan_account



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Best Friends, Deaf Character, Gen, KSL | Korean Sign Language, Light Angst, Sign Language, but its okay, chanyeol is a confused sweetheart, deaf kyungsoo, everybody loves cookies, its months later and i still cant tag, this sucks but we still love her, we love best bros in this household
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-23
Updated: 2018-09-27
Packaged: 2019-07-15 23:46:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16073897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Kyungsoo is The Deaf Kid of the neighbourhood and Chanyeol is new in town.





	1. Chapter 1

Do Kyungsoo went deaf when he was eleven.

It wasn’t a big deal for him in the beginning. It was such a slow transition that it wasn’t really noticed until he woke up in the middle of the night with ringing in his ears. His parents thought that he was just sick, nobody panicked but when it hit almost four weeks of Kyungsoo’s talk of having continuous issues with his ears was when people started to think that something was up.

He was losing his balance and had frequent dizzy spells where his knees would just give out from under him at the feeling. His parents finally took him to the hospital after almost two months. He had lost 90% of his hearing in his left ear and 79% in his right in that time.

 _Autoimmune Inner Ear Disease._  
They were given pamphlets by the doctor. Kyungsoo’s mother cried. His dad told the doctor he was wrong.  
Kyungsoo didn’t really mind that much, he was getting used to the dizziness and the ringing in his ears wasn’t as annoying as it had been.  
His treatment consisted of a mixture of prednisone, steroids and a small dose of methotrexate. His hearing could not be restored but it could be maintained at its current level.

When Kyungsoo started high school years later he completely rejected the use of sign language outside of his own home. It’s not that he was ashamed, he just didn’t want to draw attention. That doesn’t go so well. He’s sixteen and can lip read at a pretty high level but things go downhill very quickly once teachers start calling him out on not having an interpreter.  
His mom said that “kids will be kids” but Kyungsoo doesn’t think that applies very well to situations where he would be pushed down the stairs or slammed against the lockers.

He spent a lot of time alone for the first three years of high school. He was okay with that.

***

Kyungsoo sat on the windowsill one day in late August watching a moving van sitting in the driveway of the house next door.  
The house next to his has been empty for almost ten years. An elderly couple lived there before they died.

He watched from the second story as a husband and wife pulled box after box from the truck and a third person carried them inside.  
He was young but his expression made him look much older. He was _highly_ nice to look at if Kyungsoo was being honest. He carried piles of boxes into the house and the amount of cardboard Kyungsoo was seeing was making his head hurt.

He could only assume that once his mom found out she would be practically pushing him out the door to try and make him befriend the boy, most likely with the help of a cookie tray.

***

Turns out that this is exactly what happened.

Kyungsoo’s mom was nearly jumping out of her skin as she pushed her son down the sidewalk and onto the new neighbours front porch some mere hours later.

Cookies were present.

The pair stood on the wooden decking together as Kyungsoo frantically tried to free his hands. He was at an extreme disadvantage in this situation.  
‘ _Oh, don’t be like that. It’ll do you good to have some human interaction_.’ Kyungsoo’s mom signed as she rapped her knuckles against the solid wood of the door. A hand fell to his shoulder and squeezed.

The door opened and a boy in his late teens appeared before them.

‘Hi,’ The pair vocalized, slightly out of sync and key, ‘We’re the Do’s!’

***

Kyungsoo and the other boy, Park Chanyeol, hit it off pretty quickly. He had not been optimistic about the situation when it came to communication but it seemed well. Chanyeol had learnt sign when he was a kid because his parents wanted him to learn something useful. He had never been quite as grateful for the years of lessons as he was when he met Kyungsoo, the short boy with the brown doe eyes.  
Time had passed and so had many games of Mario Kart as the pair bonded over favourite ice cream flavours, a mutual distaste for ugg boots, the Harry Potter franchise and a plentiful amount of internet memes.

‘ _Hey, what’s going on Chanyeolie?_ ’ Kyungsoo signed as he dropped himself down into a plush beanbag across from the bed in Chanyeol’s room, eyeing the superman bed sheets.

‘ _Well I have now officially reached three months since I moved here and I have to say, Seoul never gets less weird does it?_ ’ Chanyeol signed casually as he rotated slightly in his spinning chair.  
Kyungsoo smiled and raised his hands. He loved the way that the other boy signed. His hands moved so casually around the words and it was like Kyungsoo could actually hear the other boy’s voice in his fingertips.  
‘ _No, I’m afraid not_.’  
‘ _Damn_.’

The two boys spoke about a lot of things but there was always one subject that was dutifully avoided. The possibility of Kyungsoo getting hearing aids. It’s not that Chanyeol wanted the other to change, he just thought that it could make some things easier for him.  
But as conversation runs on, it came up one day in late summer.

‘ _Have you ever seriously considered them? They’re not something to run away from, Soo_.’  
‘ _I’m not running away from anything. Am I not allowed to not want something?_ ’ Kyungsoo scowled, his sign became more hurried with each word.  
‘ _No, Soo, you know that's not what I meant_.’ Chanyeol signed quickly, trying to smooth things before they got out of hand.  
‘ _Then what did you mean? You don’t like that you don’t get to flaunt your talking skills or fantastic pronunciation? Is_ me _being deaf inconvenient for you?_ ’ Kyungsoo’s hands were moving at such a speed that the elder was struggling to keep up.  
‘ _Kyungsoo, please. I was just asking a question I didn’t mean to attack you._ ’ He tried his best to stay calm and make an attempt at soothing the other boy.  
‘ _Well, you sure did a good job of it_.’ Kyungsoo quickly pushed himself out of his seat and out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

‘Goddammit.’ Chanyeol sighed and spun to rest his head on the desk behind him.

***

There was a large divide between the boys for a long time. That “long time” being two weeks.

Kyungsoo avoided the elder like he was the plague. He’d go the other way around the block to avoid walking past Chanyeol’s house on the daily school commute. He ignored his texts and the onslaught of paper planes that came through his window on what seemed like a bi-minute-ly schedule. His mom found out about the “tiff” that had gone on by using her hawk-like mother skills and discussing the boys with Mrs. Park over a tea and cake earlier that week.

She had berated Kyungsoo about his behaviour and sulking for the good part of a few hours and yeah, maybe there was a bit of a breakthrough. All the talk of hearing aids had begun to drive Kyungsoo up the wall but his mom was not giving up. And maybe he was a little bit okay with that.

***

‘ _I’m going to turn them on now, okay Kyungsoo?_ ’ The doctor signed carefully. ‘You may become slightly overwhelmed in the beginning but that is completely normal.’  
Kyungsoo nodded and slow hands reached out to fiddle with the small dials on the backside of the plastic aids.

A low level of noise flooded his ears and even though he was sitting down, he still started to lose his balance.  
His mother’s hand rested on his left shoulder encouragingly.

‘ _Can you say something for me Kyungsoo? Can you say your name?_ ’ The doctor asked him slowly, sign slightly hesitant.

Kyungsoo felt like he couldn’t breathe. There was so much adrenaline rushing through his veins and just the thought alone of being able to hear himself was somewhat surreal. He thought about his mom, his teachers, the kids in the back of the class, Chanyeolie. He thought about being able to hear all of them and talk to them like everybody else does.

He opened his mouth and what came out was slightly cracked and had quivering syllables.  
He looked at his mom.

‘My name is Do Kyungsoo.’


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> short chapter bc i needed to finish this off but i didnt really know how can you tell

Kyungsoo fiddled with a stray carpet fibre next to his leg and let his head fall to rest on the wall behind him. He jumped slightly when he heard a bird chirp outside of his window and sighed. He was still trying to get used to having hearing aids after years of near silence. 

 

His mom wanted him to try having his phone off silent mode. She said that it would help him adjust a bit to things but honestly, it was just annoying him more than anything. 

 

Kyungsoo turned his attention to Chanyeol’s open window and the soft purple curtains blowing lightly in the wind. He pushed himself up and off the floor and crossed to the other side of the room. He missed him a lot. He’d gotten a text the previous night.

 

**_chanyeolie-hyung_ **

**_7:23pm_ **

_ my mom told me. im sorry if i pressured you. _

 

And yeah, maybe his heart did tighten a little bit because he couldn’t get the image of a guilty looking Chanyeol out of his head. He needed to see him again. Three weeks was too long of a time.

 

He leant over the wooden frame and looked down at the thick fence separating the two families homes. The gap between their windows wasn’t that far. He could probably make it across if he tried. Chanyeol could do it but maybe that’s just because he was long. 

 

Kyungsoo twisted his body around until he was sitting with his feet dangling out and bumbing against the white weatherboard on the side of the house. He eyed the top of the fence and gently placed his foot onto it, pushing off of his window ledge and grabbing hold of the one in front of him. He hastily pulled himself through the open window and let himself slide onto the floor in a messy heap. He let out a small laugh.

 

He quickly spotted Chanyeol in the corner of the room playing games on his laptop. He froze then realised that he couldn’t hear him through the large headphones he was wearing.

Kyungsoo quickly rearranged himself so that he was sitting with his legs crossed and leaning against the wardrobe door to his left. 

He sat there for a while, content in just being in the presence of the other boy for a while.

 

When Chanyeol finally turned around in his chair and spotted the younger he jumped so aggressively that he almost fell out of his chair. He removed his headphones and went over to the boy on the floor. Both raised their hands and signed out that they were sorry.

The pair sat there on the floor for quite some time, exchanging apologies. Kyungsoo had never seen Chanyeol’s hands move so fast but with so much precision. He had been practising in the weeks that they had been apart.

 

‘ _ I’m sorry that I made you feel like you had to get them, Soo. I swear that wasn’t what I was trying to do _ .’ Chanyeol’s hands slipped through the air with a rehearsed aura.

‘ _ You didn’t do anything. I had been afraid of getting them since I was a kid. I just needed a final push to get me off of the fence. Thank you. _ ’ Kyungsoo smiled softly and signed slowly.

 

They sat together and the silence lapsed over them. 

 

Kyungsoo shuffled himself closer to the elder and placed his hands on Chanyeol’s knees, leaning close to his face.

He opened his mouth for the first time in the past hour and spoke. ‘Say my name.’

Chayeol’s eyes widened slightly and he blinked in shock.

‘What?’ He stuttered out, making eye contact with Kyungsoo.

 

Kyungsoo lifted his hands and let them rest on either side of his friend's neck.

‘I want you to say my name. Please.’ He almost whispered.

The tension in the room from the anticipation rose as the seconds passed. Chanyeol held tightly onto the hands that sat on his neck.

 

‘Do Kyungsoo. Your name is Do Kyungsoo.’ 

 

Kyungsoo couldn’t help the tears that threatened to escape or the sob that made his chest heave silently. He lowered his head and Chanyeol pulled him closer and rubbed slow circles on his back. He was so overwhelmed by the sounds all around him that he could hear so loud and clear. The wind blowing outside, the washing machine running downstairs and Chanyeol’s breathing. Hearing his name in Chanyeol’s voice was the final straw before he broke.

 

Seconds turned into minutes and minutes into hours. Kyungsso had a crick in his neck and Chanyeol couldn’t feel his legs.

 

Chanyeol broke the silence. ‘How did you get in here, anyway?’

Kyungsoo snorted slightly.

 

‘I came in through the window.’

 

Chanyeol’s laugh was the most beautiful thing Kyungsoo had ever heard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh man you guys

**Author's Note:**

> YALL I WROTE THIS IN LIKE FIFTEEN MINUTES WITH NO EDITING OR PROOFREADING IM SORRY I KNOW THE CHARACTERISATION IS BAD AND ITS SHORT AND THERE ARE HUGE GAPS MISSING BUT ITS OKAY ITS THE THOUGHT THAT COUNTS I GUESS


End file.
